NAME
Apache::Album - Simple mod_perl Photo Album
SYNOPSIS
Add to httpd.conf
SetHandler perl-script
PerlHandler Apache::Album
# PerlSetVar AlbumDir /albums_loc
# PerlSetVar ThumbNailUse Width
# PerlSetVar ThumbNailWidth 100
# PerlSetVar ThumbNailAspect 2/11
# PerlSetVar ThumbSubDir thumbs
# PerlSetVar DefaultBrowserWidth 640
# PerlSetVar NumberOfColumns 0
# PerlSetVar OutsideTableBorder 0
# PerlSetVar InsideTablesBorder 0
# PerlSetVar BodyArgs BGCOLOR=white
# PerlSetVar Footer "Optional Footer Here"
# PerlSetVar EditMode 0
# PerlSetVar AllowFinalResize 0
# PerlSetVar FinalResizeDir thumbs
# PerlSetVar ReverseDirs 0
# PerlSetVar ReversePics 0
ABSTRACT
This is a simple photo album. You simply copy some gif's/jpeg's
to a directory, create an optional text block (in a file called
caption.txt) to go at the top, and the module does the rest. It
does however require that PerlMagick be installed.
Default settings in the httpd.conf file may be overriden by
using .htaccess files.
INSTALLATION
perl Makefile.PL
make
make install
(no test necessary)
CONFIGURATION
The configuration can be a little tricky, so here is a little
more information. It's important to realize that there are two
separate, but related directories. One is where the physical
pictures reside, the other is where the "virtual" albums reside.
Consider a filesystem called /albums exists and it is this
filesystem that will house the images. Also consider that
multiple people will have albums there, so you would create a
directory for each user:
/albums/jdw/albums_loc
/albums/travis/albums_loc
Then in your httpd.conf file you would have the following entry
to allow pictures in those directories to be viewed:
Alias /jdw /albums/jdw/
At this point you could view a full sized picture under the
directory /albums/jdw/albums_loc as the url /jdw/albums_loc.
To have an album that creates thumbnails/captions of those
pictures you would need an entry like:
SetHandler perl-script
AllowOverride None
Options None
PerlHandler Apache::Album
PerlSetVar AlbumDir /jdw/albums_loc
PerlSetVar Footer "Jim Woodgate"
Note how AlbumDir points to the url where the files exist, and
the url you use to access the album will be just like that url,
only substituting albums for albums_loc.
If anyone knows of a way to accomplish this same thing, but
using a DirectoryIndex instead, please let me know. I tried and
could not get it to work!
DESCRIPTION
This module sets up a virtual set of photo albums starting at
the `Location' definition. This virtual directory is mapped to a
physical directory under `AlbumDir'. Under `AlbumDir' create a
sub-directory for each photo album, and copy image files into
each subdirectory. You must also make the permissions for each
subdirectory so that the id which runs Apache can write to the
directory.
At this point, if you have PerlMagick installed, you can go to
*http://your.site/albums/album_name* Apache::Album will create
thumbnails for each of the images, and send the caption.txt file
along with the thumbnails to the client's browser. The
thumbnails are links to the full sized images.
The caption.txt file
The caption.txt file consists of two parts. The first part is
text/html that will be placed at the top of the html document.
The second part is a mapping of filenames to captions. The
module will do some simple mangling of the image file names to
create the caption. But if it finds a mapping in the
caption.txt file, that value is used instead. The value
__END__ signifies the end of the first section and the
beginning of the second.
For example:
Image -> Bob_and_Jenny.jpg
Caption -> Bob and Jenny (the auto-generated caption)
override in caption.txt
Bob_and_Jenny.jpg: This is me with my sister Jenny.
Here is a sample caption.txt file:

My Birthday Party

This is me at my Birthday Party!.

__END__
pieinface.gif: Here's me getting hit the face with a pie.
john5.jpg: This is John
ThumbNail Types
`ThumbNailUse' can either be set to "width" or "aspect". If
`ThumbNailUse' is set to "width", thumbnails that need to be
created will be `ThumbNailWidth' wide, and the height will be
modified to keep the same aspect as the original image.
If `ThumbNailUse' is set to "aspect", thumbnails that need to
be created will be transformed by the value of
`ThumbNailAspect'. `ThumbNailAspect' can be either a floating
point number like 0.25 or it can be a ratio like 2 / 11.
If an image file is updated, the corresponding thumbnail file
will be updated the next time the page is accessed. In
practice I have found that Netscape will used the cached
images even if they are updated. I normally have to flush the
cache and reload to see the new images.
At any time you can `rm -f tn__*' in the
`AlbumDir'/album_name/ directory, the next time the page is
loaded all the thumbnails will be regenerated. (Naturally
image names that start with tn__ should be renamed before
placing them in the album directory.)
ThumbSubDir
If you want your thumbnails to be in a different directory
than the original pictures, set `ThumbSubDir' which is the
subdirectory the thumbnails will be created in and viewed
from. (This could also be used to allow multiple sets of
thumbnails).
DefaultBrowserWidth
A general number of how wide you want the final table to be,
not an absolute number. If the next image would take it past
this "invisible line", a new row is started.
NumberOfColumns
Instead of using DefaultBrowserWidth and a guess at the number
of pixels, NumberOfColumns can be set to the maximum number of
columns in a table. The default is 0 (which causes
DefaultBrowserWidth to be used instead).
BodyArgs
This entire string is passed in the tag. Useful for
setting background images, background color, link colors, etc.
If set in the httpd.conf file, you must put quotes around the
value, and escape any quotes in the value. If this value is
set in the .htaccess file, this is not necessary:
In httpd.conf: PerlSetVar BodyArgs "BACKGROUND=gray.gif text=\"#FFFFFF\""
In .htaccess : PerlSetVar BodyArgs BACKGROUND=gray.gif text="#FFFFFF"
OutsideTableBorder
This variable's value is passed to the outer table's BORDER
attribute.
InsideTablesBorder
This variables's value is passed to all the inner table's
BORDER attributes. Note that the name of the
`InnerTablesBorder' has an 's' in it, as it modifes all the
inner tables.
Footer
This text/html will placed at the bottom of the page after all
the thumbnails, but before the end of the page. Useful for
links back to a home page, mailto: tag, etc.
EditMode
Allows the user to create new albums and upload pictures.
Obviously there are security implications here, so if EditMode
is turned on that location should probably have some kind of
security. Albums can share the same AlbumDir, so you can have
something like:
/albums - ReadOnly version, no security /albums_edit - Allow
new album creation and picture uploads, require authentication
both using the same AlbumDir.
AllowFinalResize
If this is set to true, the user will have 3 additional
options when viewing the full sized picture. The thumbnail can
still be selected to view the full picture, or Sm (Small), Med
(Medium), or Lg(Large) can be selected to bring the picture
down to fit better in a 640x480, 800x600, or 1024x758 screen.
ReverseDirs
When viewing albums, they will be sorted by name. If this is
set to true the order will be reversed. (Useful if you want to
use things like dates/months as the directory names, this will
put the most recent albums first.
ReversePics
When viewing pictures, they will be sorted by name. If this is
set to true, the order of the pictures will be reversed.
OTHER FEATURES
For people with lots of bandwidth and memory, Apache::Album can
generate a single page with all the full sized pictures (or all
the Small(sm), Medium(med) or Large(lg) pictures if
AllowFinalResize is turned on). This is enabled by passing
?all_full_images=sm|med|lg|full to the url of an album, for
example:
`http://your.web.server/albums/specific_album/?all_full_images
=sm'
Will create a page with all the picutres in an album, but none
will be larger than 640x480. The pictures will have captions as
if the pictures were being viewed one at a time.
LIMITATIONS
PerlMagick is a limiting factor. If PerlMagick can't load the
image, no thumbnail will be created.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1998-2000 Jim Woodgate. All rights reserved. This
program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the same terms as Perl itself.
AUTHOR
Jim Woodgate woody@bga.com
SEE ALSO
perl(1), the Image::Magick manpage(3).